‘The full-scale dashboard is very clear’

The greatest possible efficiency is something that every business enterprise wants. That’s why investing in smart software is a dire necessity and extremely useful. At Calligaris, they have understood this for quite some time. To this end, the Italian manufacturer and distributor of high-end furniture embarked on a partnership with Initeam in 2015. ‘Integrating Furnqube helps us measure and understand our business processes and performance much more accurately,’ says Marco Zavattini.

In the meantime, Initeam has installed Furnqube in the four shops in Calligaris’ portfolio: one in London, one in Munich and two in Paris. The staff soon became acquainted with the advantages offered by the ‘lean’ software.

According to Mr Zavattini, the user-friendly and fast interface is a great boon. ‘At a technical level, linking Furnqube to our ERP system was the biggest challenge, without a doubt, but it has brought us significant advantages. When a new order is placed, Furnqube automatically records this in our ERP package. This avoids unnecessary manual interventions, and reduces the chance of potential errors. Our shop managers are subsequently able to see all the relevant data relating to those orders by consulting the ERP package.’

In addition, Furnqube is also linked to Calligaris’ Business Intelligence platform. ‘Initially, we received lots of sales data, but this has now been considerably expanded. We now have a perfect overview, for each day and each shop, of the number of visitors and the number of contacts created by the shop manager. This result in a full-scale dashboard displaying the performance of each shop. As a result, we can see which shop is performing best, and we can also set up playful competition between the shops.’

Thanks to the numerous advantages offered by this system, Calligaris is now thinking about integrating Furnqube into its own shop in Los Angeles as well. ‘We are currently analyzing the possibilities for this. Because the market in the United States is unique, with specific characteristics, we need to gauge the extent to which the same added value can be realized there through Initeam.’

Calligaris, based in the Italian province of Udine, operates all over the world. Its products are marketed in all European countries, North and South America, Asia and – on a project basis – even in Africa and Australia. ‘Nevertheless, our home market remains the most important in terms of revenue,’ explains Marco Zavattini. ‘This can partly be attributed to the franchising formula that we have rolled out across the country, which ensures that our franchisees exclusively distribute products from our range.’

‘We want to gain the greatest possible insight into consumer behavior. To achieve this, we would like to roll out Furnqube across this entire nation-wide network, except for the fact that the contracts do not include specific stipulations in relation to software. The presentations we have held in six shops so far revealed that retailers are very interested in installing Furnqube in their shops as well.’ Zavattini concludes: ‘If we are able to arrive at a good compromise, we hope to generate an even better overview of furniture sales throughout Italy using the Initeam solution.’